Chronic Pain & Life

Every once in awhile I come across something that I think says it better than I ever could and this is one of them.​If you have ever experienced depression you may have already encountered a few of these statements in your own life...both the good and the bad.

When I saw this I thought it important to share because often the people in our lives don't know how to handle our depression. It's not easy for them to understand when they aren't feeling what we go through and sometimes they say things that are hurtful without realizing it.

And when we're in the middle of a depressive episode, it's not easy for us to communicate either. Have you ever noticed this? It's hard to talk about how you're feeling when you're struggling to put your feelings into words or even to understand why you're feeling what you're feeling. When the people around us don't understand and say things that are hurtful, it makes it that much harder for us to open up too.

Depression can be hard to talk about and hard for others to understand when they don't experience it, but it is important that we learn to break down the communication barriers surrounding depression. If you live with depression and are finding your loved ones or others around you are struggling with how to help you...show them this. Let them know too that their help is needed and appreciated.

Maybe once we learn how to talk about depression, we can start making the strides we need to breaking the stigma and we can tear down the barriers. Our loved ones need to remember that depression hurts and it's not something that we can just "snap" out of and we need to remember that our depression is episodic, it will pass and to take care of ourselves until it does.

Depression hurts but there are things you can do to help your loved one and there are things you can do to help yourself. Please..take good care of each other.